Mathematica is a software package used for communicating scientific ideas in a variety of ways, whether this is visualization of a concept in an intro-level course, or creating a simulation of a new idea related to research.

Mathematica is available for free to UAB faculty, staff and students, thanks to funding from the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering.

Campus machines

Follow the directions below to download software from Wolfram and request the appropriate activation key. If you do not have administrator access to your machine, please contact your IT support for assistance.

Resources for Educators

Learn how to make your classroom dynamic with interactive models, explore computation and visualization capabilities in Mathematica that make it useful for teaching practically any subject at any level, and get best-practice suggestions for course integration.

Rather than requiring different toolkits for different jobs, Mathematica integrates the world's largest collection of algorithms, high-performance computing capabilities, and a powerful visualization engine in one coherent system, making it ideal for academic research in just about any discipline.

In general, Mathematica is a high-level complete system, while MatLab is a low-level core with specialist toolboxes. Most engineering colleges at research universities maintain both products, including UAB. Because MatLab has separate toolboxes, each toolbox can only assume the functionality of the basic, core system; Mathematica is an all-in-one software which is interconnected nicely. For example, in Mathematica, purely numeric commands can perform symbolic pre-processing for richer and more accurate results, which is not possible in MatLab because of the design. This overall concept applies to the vast majority of Mathematica’s commands when compared to MatLab.

Engineers and other groups on campus value the following functionality, which is unique to Mathematica:

Very sophisticated symbolic algorithms for closed-form solutions to problems

Much easier to create mouse-driven interfaces to visualize variations in equations or simulations,

The highest quality and most accurate graphics engine available for symbolic and numeric graphics,

Support for both machine precision and arbitrary precision,

Automatic switching between algorithms for best results,

Solves any order ODE (rather than only first-order in MatLab),

Integration for any n-dimensions (rather than only 3 in MatLab),

Wolfram Language included to program in procedural, functional, object-oriented, or rule-based style makes language easier to learn (rather than procedural only in MatLab),

Mathematica’s high-level language requires less code to develop algorithms or ideas than MatLab

Text and equation typesetting document interface with slideshow mode (not available in MatLab),

Load-on-demand data sets to use in addition to importing a wide variety of types of data

IDE based on Eclipse, which researchers more commonly know and work with (rather than MatLab’s home-grown IDE).

The Campus agreement with Microsoft covers a certain set of software on a campus-wide basis... software such as MS Office that is used by almost everyone on campus. The Campus agreement is an annual term 'site license' based on the number of faculty/staff/students covered. The Campus agreement requires renewal and payment annually to remain in effect.

The Select agreement with MS is basically a volume discount arrangement for software products not included in the Campus agreement. These products are not widely installed, but more limited to use in certain departments or on specific systems such as servers. UAB projects an annual purchase volume (by category, not by software title) and MS provides discounts based on that projection. Should UAB not meet the annual projections future pricing would be based on the actual level of purchases from the prior year.usually at a reduced level of discount. Most product purchased under the Select agreement is granted as a perpetual license with a single upfront payment. No annual renewal fee is required to continue to use the software, but maintenance/support is available as an option.

See the Microsoft Agreement link for more information on what is available under the Campus and Select agreements.

Every UAB faculty, staff, and student (where applicable) is responsible for adhering to software copyright laws and license rights. While IT Software Licensing will ensure that appropriate licensing information is published for products included on the IT web site, it is the responsibility of each school, department, faculty/staff member, and student to maintain accurate records for all software installed on their systems. Records should include the software title, date and source of the purchase (including software acquired through this web site or AskIT), and where installed. For software not covered under a UAB site license, a sales order/invoice or the original physical media/license key would qualify as proof of a valid license. Note that only one method can be used for any one software title as proof, not a combination of the two for the same application.

Q: I use MS Project (example) on my computer and I have a copy of the media. My colleague also needs Project on her system. I know she is planning on placing an order for the software next week. Can I loan her my media to install so she can begin working immediately?

A: No, for MS Project that would be a violation of your license. Your colleague must have her own license prior to installing the software. For other titles such as MS Office covered under the Campus agreement loaning media would be acceptable. If in doubt contact AskIT for guidance.

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